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By Root 995 0

to be different, he told himself with a tug at his heart and perhaps a touch of self-deception. He fed his animals and drank one cup of coffee and shaved and showered and shined his boots and put on a new pair of western-cut gray trousers and a wide belt and a navy blue shirt. He strapped on his revolver and removed his dove-colored Stetson from the bedpost and went out to his pickup truck. The sun was below the hills, the north and south pastures damp and streaked with shadow, the stars and the moon just starting to fade back into the sky. You’re too old to act like this, a voice told him.

“Who cares?” he said.

Don’t use your legal office for your personal agenda or to make a fool of yourself.

“I’m not,” he said.

If there was any reply in his debate with himself, he refused to acknowledge it.

When he cut his engine in front of the Asian woman’s house, he could hear metallic scraping sounds in back. He walked around the side of the house and saw her scrubbing out the corrugated tank by the windmill with a long-handled brush. She wore oversize jeans that were rolled up in big cuffs, and a long-sleeve denim shirt spotted with water. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eye with the back of her wrist and looked at him.

“I need to ask you a question or two about the fellow who got loose from our man Krill,” Hackberry said.

“I can’t help you,” she said.

“You gave assistance to this fellow when he was hurt. I saw the bloody bandages and the mattress in the bunkhouse. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me that. Then you told Krill something to the effect that this fellow wouldn’t be at your house again. Not at your house, right? But he might be somewhere in the vicinity. I think you don’t want to tell a lie, Miss Anton, but for various reasons, you’re not telling the truth, either.”

She held his gaze for a moment and seemed about to speak, but instead, she bent to her work again. He took the brush from her hand. “You’re doing it the hard way,” he said. He lifted the tank on its rim and dumped out all the water lying below the level of the drain plug. Then he righted the tank, released the chain that locked the windmill blades, and began filling the tank again while scrubbing a viscous red layer of sediment from the sides and bottom. “This stuff forms from a mixture of water and leaves or dust or both, I’ve never figured it out. It’s like most things around here. Little of what happens is reasonable. It’s the kind of place people move to after they’ve been eighty-sixed from Needles, California.”

“What do you expect me to tell you?” she asked.

“You don’t need to, Miss Anton. I think I know the truth.”

With a spot of dirt on one cheek and the wind dividing her hair on her scalp, she waited for him to go on. When he didn’t speak, she placed her hands on her hips and stared at the horse tank. “Sheriff Holland, don’t play games with me.”

“The federal employee who was taken hostage by Krill is probably a single man with no family; otherwise, they would be down here looking for him or making lots of noise in the media. The fact that he sought sanctuary with you indicates he’s either on his own or he thinks you can provide him with a network of pacifists like himself. It also means he’s probably somewhere close by, up in those hills or in a cave. From what little you’ve said, and from what the FBI hasn’t said, this fellow was probably working in a defense program of some kind, one that presented him with problems of conscience. Maybe I can sympathize with his beliefs and also with yours. But Krill tortured a man to death in my county. Your friend the federal employee probably has information that can help me find Krill. Also, I think your friend is in grave jeopardy. I need your cooperation, Miss Anton. You’ve seen war in the most personal way. Don’t let your silence contribute to this man’s death.”

“You’ll turn him over to the FBI,” she said.

“What would be the harm in that?”

“He has information the government doesn’t want people to hear.”

“The government doesn’t operate that way. Politicians might, but politicians and